


Alternate Reality (Is Where I Can Love You)

by Kibbers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, Hospitals, Hunting, M/M, Movie Night, Places Where Reality is Slightly Altered, School at Night, Subways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: There are places reality feels altered. These are the places Cas is allowed to love Dean.





	Alternate Reality (Is Where I Can Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!   
> [ This post ](http://b-ecomer.tumblr.com/post/148871502469/places-where-reality-is-a-bit-altered%0A) popped up on my dash again and I got to thinking about what it would be like to love someone in these places and these places alone. Destiel happened. Hope you enjoy!

1

There was a body hiding somewhere in the walls of the elementary school down the road, the smell creeping over the heads of the students in the middle of their math test and resulting in an urgent call. It must be taken care of, the school couldn’t afford much though. They had the night and the night alone to get rid of whatever was causing the smell. 

The hallways were darkened, the echos of their shoes eerily stretching on and on, bouncing off the lockers to come back behind their heads. Dean kept turning around to check behind his shoulder, thinking he’d see someone there this time. Cas, as his side, never glanced back, but instead watched Dean turn around and in the flashlight shadow, let himself admire the shadow his eyelashes cast on his cheekbones. 

In the darkness of the school, reality felt far off. Closed away. There was no one in a place there should have been hundreds of voices clamoring for attention. Castiel was allowed to think things like that about Dean in places like this. Empty places. Ones that didn’t exist. Not really. 

So, he let himself glance out of the corner of his eye while they followed the stench of flesh and upstairs to the science wing of the school. He let himself stare. Let himself categorize every shade of shadow that failed to mute the green of Dean’s eyes. Let himself count the number of footsteps they stepped together, in sync and loudly so. 

They found the body tucked within the walls and emerged, dusted with the debris from the hole they cut to dig it out, and Castiel almost reached out to brush the dirt-speckled stars from Dean’s hair. Almost. But, Dean’s cell phone rang and reality returned. They got rid of the body. They went back to the real world.

2

Castiel stared at his ceiling as the hours tick by when Dean knocked softly at his door. It was almost three in the morning and even the stars were asleep outside. There was a blanket cast on the world, a strange slowing of time at this time of night. Cas propped himself on an elbow and beckoned Dean inside. 

He looked soft here beneath the blanket of the time between the witching hour and the sunrise when the world wasn’t sure what to be. Cotton t-shirt stretched and worn, sweatpants hanging low. His shoulders settled in a way they never did by daylight. When the world knew not what to be, Dean could be what he really was. It was the agreement, after all.

“Dean?” Cas asked, when Dean sank down onto the floor beside his bed. He peered over the edge to watch him stare out the window. “Are you alright?”

Dean paused a moment, searching the sky for something, before he turned his gaze to Cas. Cas swore he could see the imprint of stars in his eyes, then, swirling in the green. “Yeah,” Dean said, and smiled a soft smile, “I’m alright. Just can’t sleep is all.”

Cas slid from his bed, pulling the comforter with him, and settled next to Dean on the floor. He covered them both and, since this time didn’t count for anything, he sat closer to Dean than he would by daylight. Sat so his thigh was pressed against Dean’s. Sat so he was close enough to grab Dean’s hand if he had the courage, though he wasn’t so sure he did. He let himself lean his head against Dean’s shoulder and blamed the time of night when Dean sighed against him too, and they waited for the sun to rise together.

3

They had a night off. Dean had wanted to go to the midnight marathon of scary movies at the dollar theater down the street, but Sam had begged off so it was just the two of them. Dean paid for them both and bought the biggest tub of popcorn available from the blonde girl at the counter who told Dean it was on the house with a wink. Dean grinned, and walked with Cas into the theater without a backwards glance.

Soon it was midnight and the theater was still empty. They had chosen the seats at the top, so the room spread out in front of them, open and drowning. The movie began to play, something black and white and full of screams within the first minute. 

Dean looped his arm over Cas’s shoulder, and though he knew it was just a thing Dean did, Cas let himself settle in closer. He had long ago learned he could only do things like this with the beautiful man beside him in places where reality didn’t quite exist. Where the world had shifted off-kilter. There was no chance for Dean to love him if the world was aligned, so Cas pretend he did in moment like this. 

Dean watched the movie, Castiel counted the heartbeats he could feel in the spot in Dean’s elbow he had rested against Cas’s neck. 

4

When they walked to the car, Dean still had his arm slung around Cas’s neck and Cas didn’t get it. Not at first. Not until Dean made a comment about how they were the last ones in the world.

The parking lot was empty, there was no one for miles. Not a word, not a whisper. 

All the streetlights cast the road yellow like a fading bruise and Castiel measured the weight of Dean’s arm around his shoulders, wondering if there would ever be anything that felt like this. 

A door opened in the back of the theater, the blond girl from before, and Dean let his arm fall. It was like Cas had expected. He shouldn’t have let it hurt him so. The ghost of Dean’s arm hung now, too light and too suffocating at the same time. 

5

There wasn’t a diner they hadn’t tried. Cas loved Dean in every one of them.

6

“Hey, Cas?” Dean called from the living room of the bunker. 

“Yes?”

“Want to go grab a pack of beer with me? We’re out,” Dean said, head appearing in Cas’s doorway. The sky was dark. Castiel shut his book. 

The gas station was deserted around them, just the attendant looking down at his phone behind the counter. Dean snagged his fingers around the skin of Cas’s wrist and Cas tried not to memorize the feeling of Dean’s fingers on his skin. Tried. And failed. But, hey, there was no one around. It was allowed here too. He could feel it in the absence, in the emptiness where it shouldn’t be. 

Dean pulled him to the soda fountain and grinned. “Let’s play a game. Pick two, put them in the cup. I’ve got to guess what they are.”

Cas grabbed a water cup and studied his choices. “Shut your eyes,” Cas said.

“What, no way. You think I’m going to cheat or something?” Dean asked, eyes crinkling.

Cas rolled his eyes, letting his fingertips slide over Dean’s eyelids, feeling them flutter beneath his skin. “Yes. Keep them closed.”

Dean sighed. “Fine, fine. But, what do I get if I win?”

“Whatever you want,” Cas said, and though his voice was measured, he meant every word in this abandoned gas station as the hour struck midnight.

“Deal. Hit me,” Dean said. Cas chose two and brought the cup to Dean’s lips, slowly, watching them part, feeling his hand cup around Cas’s to steady it, watching the liquid slide down his throat. He felt like he was witnessing the birth of the mountains again, witnessing something extraordinary and celestial. 

Dean blinked his eyes open, soft, and then grinned. “Dr. Pepper and Orange Fanta?”

Cas nodded and Dean threw up a celebratory fist. The guy at the register glanced up with dead eyes and didn’t seem to see a thing. He went back to his phone. Dean started to mock an audience cheering for him with a hand over his mouth. 

Dean bought the beer and they climbed back into the Impala to head home. 

Castiel turned to him as the trees became faceless and giant. “So, you won. What would you like?”

Dean glanced over at Cas in the passenger seat, something strange hidden in his eyes and the way the darted to Castiel’s hand at his side. He cleared his throat, turning back to the road. With one hand he turned up the music, loud enough for Cas to feel it in his chest. “This,” Dean yelled over the guitar, “this is what I want.”

Cas nodded and they drove, every note a heartbeat between them both. 

7

There was a case across the nation, so they had to fly to get there. Something sinister, something too big for it to wait. Sam booked them plane tickets on the red eye, and so there they were, sprawled in the airport terminal, waiting for their boarding section to be called. It was nearing four in the morning, and Dean at Cas’s side was stiff everywhere. 

“Dean?” Cas whispered. Sam across from them slept. Dean shook his head with three sharp jabs. “Dean, come on. It’ll be okay. I’ve flown many times before and without this machinery around me too.”

“Different,” Dean ground out. “You had wings.”

“So does this plane, Dean,” Cas said. He reached out a hand in the florescent lighting and let his rest on top of Dean’s fist. Gentle he pulled until his fist was flat and Cas turned his palm over, sliding his fingers into Dean’s. All the while he watched for Dean to react, for Dean to pull away. But, it was an airport and it was four in the morning and no one was paying any attention. 

He let Cas hold his hand and grabbed it again when the plane took off, tucked between their thighs. Cas told Dean about the first time he flew and what it was like to feel like a cloud. Dean relaxed at his side, if only a little, so Castiel kept murmuring to him all through the flight while the rest of the plane slept.

8

Sam had taken too heavy of a blow. He had been down and hadn’t gotten up again. Dean sped them to the hospital and he and Cas had been waiting in the lobby for news ever since. Dean paced and paced and Cas watched him walk. 

“I should have seen it coming, should have stopped it, man if only I had been two steps quicker,” Dean muttered and muttered, nails digging into the skin of his palm. 

“Dean,” Cas said. “Sit.”

Dean didn’t even glance his way. Across the room, a mother slept with a child tucked against her side. The receptionist was gone for the moment, getting coffee for them both. Cas stood, without thinking, threw his arms around Dean and held him still against his chest. “Dean. It’s not your fault. Please stop punishing yourself like it is.”

Against him, Dean stiffened for just one fraction of a moment before everything went soft. He said nothing, didn’t move his arms to hug him back. But his shoulders weren’t holding the world anymore, so Cas counted it as a win. 

The receptionist came back through the doors and Cas let his arms fall. She held out the coffee and he smiled as he took it from her. Dean beside him stared and Cas wasn’t sure why. “Sit,” Cas said, holding out a cup to Dean.

“Thank you, Cas,” Dean said, sitting. Cas wasn’t sure what it was for, hearing more in the word than appreciation for a cup of mediocre coffee, but he nodded nonetheless. Anything to make things easier for Dean.

9

When they wound up in New York, they rode the subway from one end to the other, something Sam had always wanted to do and Dean, secretly, had too. Sam wandered up and down the train cars stop after stop, but Dean sat beside Cas. Somewhere along the way, he grabbed Cas’s hand while they watched the brick blurr by. He didn’t let go until the last stop and by then Cas had decided he never wanted to let go.

10

Once, in a stairwell outside an office building they were scoping out, Dean said Cas’s name and ti felt like the whole world lived inside the word. Cas turned around, waiting for more, but the door above them opened. He never asked Dean what he was going to say again, sometimes wondered if he imagined the whole thing.

11

The hallway from Castiel’s room to Dean’s room was long, carpet-padded, dimmed in the darkness of the night. Castiel stood in his doorway, Dean at the end of the hall. They met eyes, and Dean froze. He took a step forward, at war in himself by the way it was so measured and so slow. He took another. Castiel watched him walk closer, frozen to the spot. 

Here was a place only the two of them existed. Here was a place he allowed himself to wish. 

Dean stopped in front of Cas and he didn’t tear his gaze away. “Dean?” Cas asked.

“Remember when we were at that gas station and I guessed the sodas right and you told me I could have whatever I wanted?”

Cas frowned. “You wanted to blast music in the Impala, if I remember right.”

“No,” Dean said, “No. I wanted to do this.”

His hand was soft against Cas’s jaw, warm against his lower back. This close, his freckles morphed into galaxies. This close, his lips felt like the midnight sky, soft and full of fire.

Cas didn’t know if this was something that would make it in daylight, but he knew he could love Dean in places like this. Where time didn’t feel real so they had to be. So, he loved him and he prayed he wouldn’t lose him when the sunlight came. The sun rose, Dean stayed.  

“I thought I could only love you in the spaces that weren’t real,” Cas whispered.

“No,” Dean whispered back. “You can love me anywhere because that’s where I’ll love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think below and come say hi on Tumblr [](http://kibberswrites.tumblr.com>%20here</a>!)


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